Masks
Now, more than ever, we have become acutely aware that we all swim in each others’ mists and that proximity can transmit and infect. The western handshake and European cheek peck may soon become obsolete and the palm-press namaste of…
Comic Book Daily
Discussing the minutiae of comic book collecting.
Comic Book Daily
Discussing the minutiae of comic book collecting.
Tag Anglo American Comics
Read MoreMasks
Sort of Heroes
As many of you know, this column began seven years ago as part of my attempt to focus a newly minted retirement on something both interesting and challenging, albeit perhaps trivial in comparison to the struggles we all face daily…
Mysteries of Anglo-American Comics
The story of the past derives from documents and memory. These documents can be artifacts and phenomena such as the petrified thigh bone of a brontosaurus or the distinct geological layer of iridium that corresponds to the impact of a…
Who is Freelance?
Collectors and comic aficionados are quick to knock Canadian war-time black-and-white comics to the lower rungs of the comic book quality ladder and, of the four main Canadian comic book publishers, Anglo-American comic books are seen to occupy the lowest…
Another New Year
I am not a person who enjoys the sombre cocooning that winter imposes on us pensioned comic geeks–and this year we are having a real, old-fashioned winter. You young whippersnappers might call this an Arctic Vortex, but to those of…
The most collectible of the WECA Publishers
I often wonder how many WECA (or, if you prefer, Canadian Whites) collectors there are out there? How many of them are outside Canada (in the States, in the UK, in Europe, or even in Australia/New Zealand)? In any case,…
Eddy Smet Donates Whites to Western
About a month ago, Eddy Smet, a retired math professor from Huron College at the University of Western Ontario (1976-2006), long time comic book collector and former comic book store owner (The Comic Book Collector—there was also an Eddy Smet…
Robin Hood
For me those comics that so many people affectionately call the “Canadian Whites” fall into a specific window whose most convenient frame is a single run of comics: Robin Hood Comics Vol. 1 No. 1 (March, 1941) to Robin Hood Comics Vol. 3 No. 34 (Dec. 1946-Jan. 1947). This is what II'vecome to term the WECA era because it was initiated by the War Exchange Conservation Act (WECA) passed Dec. 6, 1940 and came to an end as the provisions of this Act were repealed.
FECA
For this column I’ve chosen to step outside of my normal mandate and talk a little about that period that came after the WECA Period (Robin Hood Comics Vol. 1 No. 1 and Better Comics Vol. 1 No. 1 in…
The Return of ComicLink Canadian Whites
The last ComicLink featuring a collection of Canadian “Whites” was this past February and, in the end, commanded some eye-opening prices for these scarce books. There we had about three dozen books, most in mid-grade to better. In my opinion even 6.5 and up should be considered “high grade” for these scarce Canadian wartime comics, given that so few are found in this condition.
This month’s auction, even though it has almost double the amount of books (61), has them in mostly in lower grades. Almost a dozen of them are incompletes (0.5) because of a centerfold missing or a rectangular coupon cut out of the front cover. I’ve done a summary of the books on offer in a chart form anchored on condition, going from the lowest to the highest.
Men of the Mounted
Of all Canadian icons the Mountie is perhaps the best internationally known. The red serge, jodhpurs and boots combination probably holds higher world-wide currency and branding for Canada than the beaver, crossed-hockey sticks, and even the maple leaf.